CONCRETE evidence that Adolf
Hitler was personally involved in the details of
planning the Holocaust has been published in a new
German book based on Soviet interrogations of two
of the Nazi leader's closest aides.

David
Irving comments::

EACH time I read that
fresh "concrete evidence" of Adolf
Hitler's involvement in the massacre of
the Jews has been found, I wait for the
inevitable follow up: such evidence has
"not been found before." -- It comes along
as sure as night follows day. Each fresh
"concrete discovery" thus discredits and
invalidates the previous one, and this one
too will eventually be discredited, -- not
least because we are not shown the
original German text of the statements by
Günsche and Linge. But it all goes down
very well with the corrupt media world,
with you-know-whom, and with the present
German regime. No real risk is incurred by
any modern German historian in saying
these things. And so they get said. Ad
nauseam. Ad infinitum. And we get no
wiser. When I first received --
from my friend Lev Bezymenski in
Moscow -- parts of the Russian text of
this Stalin Hitler-book I put them in
writing (translated back into German) to
both Linge and Günsche; I also
interviewed Günsche closely on
Hitler's knowledge of the massacres. His statements to me
were negative -- Hitler had known nothing,
had not been involved, there had never
been any discussion of this sort of thing
at Hitler's headquarters. But then of
course I did not beat and torture him, I
merely questioned him as any real
historian should. I am surprised and sorry
that Matthias Uhl, who is a conformist
historian at the Institut für
Zeitgeschichte, does not concede, however
grudgingly, that I first used this Russian
manuscript in the 1960s. My correspondence
with Günsche and Linge about its
content is in the Sammlung Irving in the
IfZ archives. Surely he looked?

Matthias Uhl, a Berlin historian who found
a secret biography of the Nazi leader in Moscow
commissioned by Josef Stalin, said today
that such tangible proof of Hitler's role in the
Holocaust that killed six million
had not been found
before.

"It was always assumed Hitler was involved in
the Holocaust planning despite a lack of
corresponding documents," Mr Uhl said after the
publication of his 672-page Das Buch Hitler (The
Hitler Book) based on
a 413-page original for Stalin.

"This shows for the first time that Hitler was
intimately involved," he said.

The Hitler Book was first presented to the
Soviet dictator in December, 1949, in a limited
edition of one. Mr Uhl found it buried in a Soviet
archive last summer and with the help of a Nazi
expert, Henrik Eberle, published the book
yesterday.

Mr Uhl said the biography designed to give
Stalin details of Hitler's death, insights into his
thinking, and information about the betrayals
around him was based
on two years of interrogation of two Hitler
associates - his butler Heinz Linge and SS
adjutant Otto Günsche
(below).

Linge and Günsche spent 10 years working
for Hitler.

They were captured by the Soviets in Berlin on
May 2, 1945, days after both helped burn Hitler's
body.

After beatings,
they told the Soviet secret service all they knew
about Hitler.

They were released in 1955. Linge died in 1980
and Günsche in 2003.

"Hitler showed personal
interest in the development of the gas
chambers," the book said. "He studied the
development of the project that (SS leader
Heinrich) Himmler presented him. Hitler ordered
full support for engineers building the gas
chambers."

The book, which supports much of what is already
known about Hitler, his odd sense of humour and his
relationship with Eva Braun, quotes from written
reports by Linge and Günsche.

"Hitler told Himmler to
use more trucks with mobile gas chambers so that
munition needed for the troops wouldn't be
wasted on shooting Russian (prisoners)," the
book reads.

"Himmler reported that the
mobile gas chambers were working. He laughed
cynically when he said that this method of
murder is 'more considerate' and 'quieter' than
shooting them," it said.

Mr Uhl, an historian at the Institute of
Contemporary History
[Institut für
Zeitgeschichte], said the book
offers confirmation that Hitler had no warning
about his deputy Rudolf
Hess's peace flight to Britain in 1941.

"Obviously after more than 50 years of study
into the Nazi era there isn't a lot to be found
that's going to rewrite history," Mr Uhl said. "But
it does illuminate a lot of things."

Mr Uhl said Hitler's relationship with Eva
Braun, for example, was closer than thought,
especially after Germany's defeat at Stalingrad. He
called her at least every second day after
that.

Hitler also had a strange sense of humour.

He allowed German soldiers in occupied countries
to marry local women, but only after he saw
photographs of the women.

"Most of the women in the pictures were not
especially pretty," the book said. "Hitler laughed
and said once the soldiers who fell in love with
these women sobered up again they would curse him
for allowing them to marry."

The book quotes the two aides saying Hitler
mocked the United States when it declared war in
December 1941.

"He said their cars never win races, American
planes look sharp but their engines are worthless
... He said they hadn't proven anything - just
mediocrity and advertising."